


This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

by thesesongsaretrue



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Mental Anguish, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-07 13:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesesongsaretrue/pseuds/thesesongsaretrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unwelcome surprise greets River when the Doctor returns her to Stormcage - can she and the Doctor somehow overcome the consequences?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Little Talks

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1: Little Talks

The minute River stepped out of the TARDIS she knew that something was wrong. And not only because, thanks to her human-plus DNA, she could feel that this wasn't the minute she should have been stepping out of the TARDIS and back into her cell. They were 54 minutes and 15 seconds late, but that wasn't all. She had been late to get back to her cell before of course, six times, in fact, and she had always slipped back in, alerted the guards that they could turn off the alarm, and went back to business as usual. It was precisely the fact that there was no blaring alarm going off that alerted her that something was wrong.

He had said they might be cutting it close, but she'd told him it wouldn't be the first time she was late and he'd laughingly agreed. As she registered that something wasn't quite right at Stormcage she heard the TARDIS dematerializing swiftly behind her, just as she'd instructed him to. Now regretting that advice, she turned around as quickly as possible back towards the flickering image of the TARDIS entering the vortex, hoping he would somehow see her and be able to stop and let her back in, at least so that they could investigate the situation before she ventured off into unknown danger. The TARDIS dematerialized completely and River sighed, thinking, "I have to do everything myself, I swear,"as she brought her right wrist up to activate her vortex manipulator.

A large hand closed around her arm just below her elbow, the grip easily forceful enough to bruise. Now, normally, River would simply have taken hold of this mysterious, presumptuous "captor" and thrown him summarily to the ground. Glancing down at the offending hand, she scowled deeply and resisted this urge. Although she could leave whenever she wished, she did have a promise to keep by serving her time in Stormcage, and she didn't like to make things any worse for herself than she absolutely had to. The wrist attached to the hand gripping her arm sported the telltale cuff of a guard's uniform. Ignoring the slightly painful grip, she turned slowly towards her "captor," realizing this was a mistake as she heard another guard "sneaking up" behind her. To hell with the trouble she was going to cause herself by knocking out a few guards, this seemed like it could go very poorly if she didn't get out of here and figure out what was going on. Muttering a sarcastic apology, she took down the guard who had a hold of her arm, and spun to face the other one. Scratch that, the other three. Oh, and those two coming up behind her. Right then, looked like it was time to get serious, she reached for her plasma gun.

Her hand encountered only empty holster where there should have been a gun, and by the time she bent over to get it from the apparently far-more-adept than she'd supposed though-still-currently-unconscious guard, the other five were in too close range for firing to be worthwhile, so she went for hand-to-hand combat instead, using the handle of the gun as a blunt weapon. When all six guards were lying in various positions at her feet, she quickly went for her manipulator again, only to hear another set of footsteps behind her, though this time still at a decent distance. She spun around, aimed her blaster, and fired, watching the guard drop to the ground. As she brought her wrist up once again, she heard it. There was some kind of projectile whistling towards her from behind – the approach of the gunman must have been cleverly timed to coincide with her blaster fire at the other – she mentally kicked herself – decoy guard. It was too late to dodge properly by the time she heard it, but she tensed slightly against the impact – she had probably had worse, but she was sure it wouldn't be pleasant. As such, her cry was primarily of surprise as she felt the dart sink into her neck. Thanking the extra time her physiology gave her against whatever the dart contained, she managed to turn around and get a shot off at the smug-looking guard who had launched the dart. The swift change of expression on his face was the last thing she saw as her vision blurred and she felt herself crumple to the ground.

River awoke to find her head surprisingly clear, given that she'd obviously been drugged. She began to struggle against her bonds immediately, hoping to catch her captors by surprise – she undoubtedly had been under for a shorter time than they would expect for a full human given whatever dosage they had used. Her wrists and legs met with the strong resistance of metal clamps, and she snapped her eyes open. Taking in her surroundings, she sighed and shook her head. She was strapped into a chair, surrounded by strange equipment. Torture, really? Why is it that they always think that will work? Before she had much of a chance to try to hypothesize what sort of torture they would be going for, the room's lone door swung open and three guards entered, followed by a man of middling height in a command uniform. Two of the guards took up posts at the door, and the third began adjusting the equipment behind her. River simply ignored him and the equipment, knowing that its purpose would be evident soon enough. Instead she assessed the commander. Average height, mostly grey hair, well-kept uniform, frown lines, sharp gaze, not particularly trim, but in a decidedly muscle-going-to-fat manner.

Straightening in her forced seat, she managed to cross her legs at the ankle, pleased that they hadn't changed her outfit so that this position still managed to put her heels and legs on full display. It hadn't won her any favors yet, but River Song just loved how uncomfortable people of this sort always were when confronted with an unruffled "victim." As he cleared his throat to begin, she finished making a show of looking him up and down and beat him to the punch, purring, "Well hello soldier." Her tone surprised him into delaying his own speech, and she continued, "You must be new." He began to move, closing the gap between them until he was standing above her. She tilted her head up at him, batting her eyelashes once for emphasis, "I assume you know who I am, in fact, you seem to have set up quite a reception for me. Lovely of you, I'm sure. But –" Her statement was cut off as he slapped her hard across the face, sending her head into the top of the metal chair. Her vision clouded briefly with black as she turned back towards him, only to find him walking away from her.. Judging him to be a sufficient distance away, she risked adding softly, "Not much for introductions then," making sure to sound a bit wounded – it did pay to please one's captor on occasion.

He turned back to face her, clasping his arms behind his back and shaking his head slowly from side to side, "River, River, River, how amusing that you think we should get to know each other. Normally, I wouldn't even be bothered filling you in, but seeing as you're about to be so accommodating" at this River raised an eyebrow, "I suppose I can return the favor. Think of it as an advance. Perhaps not my name though, I don't want us to get too close." She wasn't entirely sure, but he might have just winked. The aching pain in her cheek and the back of her head reminded her of the slap, and she spared a moment to think, Oh great, a slapper and a winker, this time I've managed to get myself bagged by a real nutcase. "I've recently been given command of Stormcage Containment Facility," yes, yes, she remembered hearing something about the takeover, but it was fairly common, so she hadn't thought much of it, "and unlike my predecessors, I'm unwilling to tolerate your frequent escapes. I'm unwilling to tolerate you escaping at all, in fact. Which brings us to our current situation." Now he was leaning over her again, and had put a hand under her chin to tilt her face towards his. Not entirely wanting to lose any more brain cells before this little torture session began properly, she clenched her jaw to avoid rolling her eyes. "You are going to tell me precisely how it is that you have been escaping, so that we can put an end to this nonsense, hmmm?" Ah, alright, well at least now she knew where this was going, though the precise methods of torture he would be using were still unclear. She shook her head gently, apologizing to both of them. This was going to be unpleasant for her until the Doctor showed up, and then, she imagined, quite unpleasant for her captor. The Doctor would show up, he always did. But more than that, she'd used her vortex manipulator to send him a quick message before she'd had to turn away from it the second time during her confrontation with the guards in the corridor. Always have a backup plan. More accurately, always have two backup plans if one of them wasn't the Doctor. Luckily, he was always her backup.


	2. Though the truth may vary

The Doctor was moping a bit as he piloted the TARDIS away from Stormcage – he hated having to leave her there, not to mention how quiet it was without her around. That bemused little smile she gave him always made his rambling twice as worthwhile. His fingers itched to pilot the TARDIS back to her the next day in Stormcage, but he fisted them and sighed instead – she always knew when he only left for a few minutes before swinging around to get her the next day. It was no use, he was going to have to find something to do with himself…or not, he thought, as the image on the monitor changed abruptly.

 

_Incoming Message_

__

_Origin: Unregistered Vortex Manipulation Device_

 _

Message:

Ambush, Sweetie. Come back. X

_

 

Reading the message, the Doctor frowned at "ambush," but smiled as he finished, hands dancing over the controls, sending the TARDIS back to Stormcage. An ambush wasn't good – but she'd had enough time to write sweetie, and she was River, so in all likelihood she was handling it just fine and simply needed him to pick her up so that the two of them could figure out what was up. Frankly, it sounded like an adventure. He tapped his foot impatiently, hoping the TARDIS would hurry up and get there already. He grinned smugly to himself partly at the thought that River Song needed him and partly in anticipation of how her face would light up when she saw him. Oh, it would only be for an instant before it was replaced with some other expression – an eye roll or something flirty, or even dismissive or sarcastic – but he would catch it, that one instant of unadulterated, unhidden joy that he had come for her, as – he had promised himself – he always would.

So it was that by the time the TARDIS came to a noisy stop in the halls of Stormcage, the Doctor was already pushing the door open, but as his gangly form tripped into the corridor, he was greeted only by a pile of unconscious guards and the sound of his own muffled curse at arriving after the excitement. Sparing a moment to shut the door properly, he took out his screwdriver and ventured further into the corridor, heading for River's cell. He didn't know where she was, but there weren't any clues around aside from the pile of guards. While that was indicative of River's presence, it didn't tell him where she'd gone, so her cell seemed like a good first site of investigation.

A few yards from her cell he came upon another guard's body. This one had been shot, unlike the rest, and though someone had clearly stopped to make sure the blood wasn't getting all over the corridor, no one had bothered to move the body, nor treat the unconscious ones he'd come across earlier…so this had clearly happened recently. In fact, the evidence pointed not only to it happening recently, but also to whoever was in charge having something more important to attend to than the scene of the ambush. The Doctor knelt next to the guard to see if he could determine anything else about River's encounter with him, he was starting to be concerned that "something more important to deal with" might be River herself, and that was kicking his brain into overdrive. He needed to find her. Preferably now. Well, preferably when he'd arrived, but it was too late for that, so now would have to do.

Scanning the area around the guard, he spotted a discarded weapon. Leaning over to inspect it at closer range, he drew in a sharp breath as he realized it was a dart gun. He ran the sonic over it as quickly as possible and jumped up immediately at the reading – one dart, recently fired. He began casting about frantically with the sonic screwdriver, hoping to be able to locate the dart along a wall or in some other location that was not his wife's flesh. Trying not to make much noise, he hissed quietly at the sonic screwdriver, bringing it right up to his eyes to read that it had not, in fact, found the dart. He shoved the screwdriver forcefully into his pocket and promptly set about pacing around the guard, hands flitting about his head, unable to still themselves. He mouthed the words as he thought them – speaking aloud about these things always seemed to help, and this was the closest he was going to get at the moment.

"River ambushed, clearly took out the attackers, but no one's bothered to clean up what she left behind, last guard downed had just fired a dart gun, and that dart is nowhere to be found. It could be anywhere. No, you know where it is. Buried in her neck, right where you like to kiss her. That's terrible, stop thinking that. Don't think that – you don't know that, it isn't a fact, it's a conjecture at best. Well yes but by far the most probable conjecture, you aren't stupid. Far from it. Oh not good. Positively worrisome. Have to find her, figure out where they took her." And with that, he began to walk down the corridor, sticking to shadows as much as possible and constantly scanning with the sonic screwdriver, removed from his pocket by a hand steadied with purpose.

* * *

River really couldn't bring herself to be concerned as the Commander gestured for the guard setting up the machinery behind her to proceed. At this point, physical pain was unpleasant, and she certainly wasn't looking forward to it, but there wasn't much to do but submit to it and wait it out. In any case, it was highly unlikely they would hurt her body anymore than she had been hurt before, and to be perfectly fair, anymore than she had done to others when the situation required. So no, she did not struggle against her bonds – preferring to maintain as much dignity as possible until, as always, the pain took away her ability to make that choice. That is, she did not struggle against them until she heard the Commander's explanation of the device. "See River," he began as the guard lowered a metal arm above her, "you really have no choice about being cooperative. As we speak your head is being attached to psychoelectronic equipment that will get the information out for us, whether you like it or not."

As understanding dawned on her, she lashed out against the bonds, moving her head frantically as the guard attempted to lower a cage-like device onto it. The Commander's strong hands gripped the side of her face, and as she felt the cage settle onto the crown of her head, she looked into his eyes, hoping to reason with him before they started up the machine. "No, you have to listen to me. You don't understand. My...my brain doesn't quite work like you're expecting it to, and I just don't know what will happen with this kind of a device!" His less-than-helpful response rang in her ears as panic set in, "More secrets, River Song? They won't be secrets for long, now will they?" He gestured for the guard to start up the device, and as River heard him flip a switch and felt the air in the room crackle, she sent out one last, desperate thought to the universe,  _Doctor!_ Then the device came online, and the guard and the Commander looked on in shock as for several long, unexpected seconds, River Song sat in the chair and simply screamed as blue lightning streamed out of the headpiece and into her skull. Then the entire device exploded in a boom of flying metal and crackling electricity. The force of the explosion threw the commander and all three guards against walls so hard that they slid to the ground unconscious and silenced River's scream as, unable to send her body flying, it slammed her head into the metal behind her.


	3. Now we're torn, torn, torn apart, there's nothing we can do

The Doctor was rounding the corner of the corridor lined with interrogation chambers when he heard River's scream and then heard as it was cut short by the explosion. He set off at a full run towards the origin of the sound, a small room halfway down the corridor, but only advanced a few steps before a crackling wave of blue lightning emerged from the room and tore down the pipes lining the hallway on his left. The Doctor frowned, and a section of his brain not wholly occupied with thoughts about River whirred into motion, identifying the blue lines of light as an uncontrolled psychoelectronic discharge. The frown deepened. Tilting his head at the highly curious appearance of free psychoelectricity in Stormcage, he switched the settings on his sonic screwdriver and pointed it up at the ceiling. Exerting the full psychic mastery of an, albeit somewhat wayward, Time Lord, he shielded his mind thoroughly before activating the screwdriver. The lightning promptly arced off the pipes and headed straight for the Doctor's chest, where it then wove around him, spinning so closely about his head that even through his shielding he couldn't help but sense some of what it contained. It continued on past his head, traveling up his arm, before being harmlessly dispersed across the ceiling by the sonic screwdriver.

His impression of a lightning rod complete, the Doctor took off at a faster run than before down the hallway. He was even more concerned than before, now that the energetic whisperings he'd sensed from the psychoelectric charge had given him a better idea of both what had been done to River and what had caused that explosion. The fact that, if his hypothesis was correct, those two events were one in the same caused him no small amount of upset. Someone was going to pay, and pay dearly, but first he still had to get to River.

The energy had been quite unsettling. Not only an unfocused spontaneous discharge, but not even from a single mind - instead it had seemed like a collection of perhaps a hundred disjointed, disturbed mental fragments. Worst of all, from the feel of it, what he had handled had been like a spark cast off from a campfire - the leftovers of a much greater initial surge, most of which must have found another lightning rod, so to speak. He was afraid he knew that other lightning rod intimately, and the knowledge of what energy like that could do to an unprepared, unshielded Time Lord or, he grimaced further, mostly Time Lady…Before psychoelectronics had been outlawed on Gallifrey accidents had filled a hospital ward with permanently damaged victims – sound of mind but with varying and unpredictable mental damage. Some had forgotten their entire lives, others couldn't form new memories and lived in a constant state of bewildering newness, some developed extreme split personalities, and worst of all, some simply never moved or spoke again. He had been to the ward once, when a friend had asked for his company in visiting her niece. He slowed to a halt in the hallway as his mind replaced the face of every victim in the ward with River's. In one bed she stared out at him wild-eyed, in the next she asked him repeatedly who he was, and in the third she did nothing at all. He took one slow step backwards on his right foot.

NO. He brought his right foot forward again. He didn't know what had happened to her, and he needed to assume it wasn't the worst. Because if it was, he wasn't sure how he could face it, and some part of him knew that what was important was to keep his feet travelling towards that door, not away from it, because if he started to run away he would never stop. He put one foot in front of the other and took a deep breath as he reached the door.

He yanked the door open. The sound he made when he spotted River's slumped form was somewhat of a growl, and he used much more force than was strictly necessary to shove the unconscious forms of two of the guards out of the doorway. The slap of their bodies against the floor did nothing to erase the sound of River's cry where it echoed in his ears, but the cruelly analytical part of his mind told him to focus on the anger; the anger would give him something to do.

He took two furious strides across the room to reach River, who had blood matting the hair on the back of her head as it flowed slowly out of a nasty gash across the top of her head from the edge of the metal chair. Removing his jacket, he hastily untied his bowtie and removed his shirt, which he proceeded to wrap tightly around River's head, bunching most of the cotton up on top of the wound itself. She had several other scrapes around her head from the metal contraption which now lay atop her head, bent and bashed and tangled with her hair, but he judged these to be entirely superficial and not likely to cause significant blood loss. Thankful to have a task at hand to distract him from the full reality of River's situation, he put his jacket back on with the bow tie stashed safely in his pocket, and set about carefully untangling the wires and metal frame from her curls.

And if he avoided looking at her face while he did it and did his best to ignore the frizziness of her hair (evidence of the psychoelectricity's forced entrance into her head), well, then at least there was no one to observe it but the Doctor's own cruel, judgemental conscience.

His hands shook as he finished untangling the last bit of the equipment, and as soon as he removed it from her head he turned away from her quickly. Strengthened by his anger, his hands steadied as he took in the rest of the room. He quickly memorized the model number and details of the machine, but a quick scan with the sonic told him that further investigation of the equipment would yield no results - the circuitry had been completely destroyed by the surge. The man who was now out cold at the base of the wall across from River had clearly been in charge, as was easy to see from the various rank insignias marking his uniform. Right then, for the moment, this had been his fault.

The Doctor crossed the room to the man, grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall. With one hand still holding the man's shoulder to the wall, the Doctor covered the man's throat with his right hand. Rage darkening the edges of his vision and threatening to engulf him entirely, he began to tighten his grip. He had many regrets, yes, and so he offered mercy as often as possible, but he was so very very close to being completely alone in the world and that...that was what made him dangerous. He would kill this man and many more for what had been done to her and he would not regret it.

The small part of his mind that still held a trace of hope for River interrupted his rage just as the man's unconscious breathing became dangerously shallow, and he dropped the man back onto the floor, horrified at what he had almost missed. If there was a shred of hope that he might be able to fix her, then the information he would need would die with this man, who had been responsible for the damage. Looking down at this monster of a man, the effort it took not to kill him on the spot made the Doctor clench his jaw so tightly in his anger that his teeth ground against each other, and he formed fists at his side so tight that his fingernails nearly cut into his palms. The Doctor paced around the small room like a caged animal, caught between his desire for vengeance and his truly desperate need to believe that something could still be done for River. His River. He had to operate under the assumption that something could still be done for her. If he couldn't believe that, then -

He turned around on the spot to face one of the guards. Right, so, what to do with these soldier-types. He should move them. He should tie them up? Yes, he should move them together and tie them up. He set about doing so as quickly as possible. It wasn't that he was in shock exactly - the Doctor was far too old and had seen far too much to really experience shock anymore - it was just that he needed to be doing something effective while his mind absorbed the information that River had just been directly subject to an enormous surge of psychoelectricity. At this point he knew himself and his needs by instinct, and that was what he lived by, and right now he knew that he could not handle both the visual, emotional reality of River in that chair and the intellectual reality of what had happened at the same time. He had to get to some level of acceptance with one before he could face the other, so he lined up the guards against the wall opposite River and tied them up thoroughly using the coil of rope that had presumably been brought into the room in case River had required extra restraints. With that finished, he dragged the commanding officer backwards towards the metal chair that currently held River. Releasing the man's body for a moment, the Doctor stood upright and took one deep breath. He was ready.

The Doctor turned around to face River and immediately checked the status of his shirt where he'd wrapped it around her head wound. Pleased that not much blood had seeped into the shirt, he sighed. How odd to know that your wife's head wound would be the least of your worries in the upcoming days. Before starting to remove River from the chair, he bent over so that his face was level with hers and lifted her head gently so that he could really look at her. His eyes clouded and his throat tightened as he traced his finger over a scratch running the length of her cheek. Then, looking directly at her, he coughed to clear the lump in his throat. It wouldn't seem to go away, so he cleared his throat again. Finally, he began to speak softly. He held himself to his promises, always, and he needed to make this promise now, before he knew what she was like now, before he wanted to run. "I will do everything I can to fix you, River," he spoke softly but firmly to a room full of unconscious witnesses, "but you already knew that. Of course I will." Here, he swallowed and blinked several times, struggling against tears "And I uh, well I know I don't have the best track record really but I..." He glanced around nervously before finishing at break-neck speed, "I promise that even if I can't fix it I'll care for you however you are."

That taken care of, the Doctor carefully removed River from the chair, kissing each of her wrists where the metal clamps had rubbed them sore and then placing her gently on the floor, making sure to turn her head to the side so that it did not press against the gash. He arranged the uniformed man in the chair and used the sonic screwdriver to close all of the arm and leg clamps, and with the equipment which electronically controlled the clamps now thoroughly fried, he was sure there would be no opening them again except for by way of his screwdriver. Picking River up cautiously, he carried her out of the room. He slammed the door behind him with his foot and aimed the sonic screwdriver at it with his right arm, angled awkwardly out from beneath River's knees, locking the door and scrambling the keypad which served as the normal lock. No one would get in or out before he returned to extract every bit of information they had about that machine. Looking down at River's expressionless face as he carried her dead weight back to the TARDIS and feeling the warmth of her blood where it was slowly gathering beneath her head on the upper part of his sleeve, he was almost afraid of what he would do to the prisoners once he had his information. Almost.


	4. We used to play outside when we were young and full of life and full of fun

The Doctor carried River back to the TARDIS without encountering any further guards and once inside brought her to the medical bay. He gingerly unwrapped his now bloody shirt from her head and cleared her hair out of the way so that he could more closely inspect the cut. It was long, but not actually particularly deep, and he knew how quickly she generally healed, so he simply sterilized it and bandaged it thoroughly. With that situation as under control as it was going to be until -  _if_  - she awakened, he ran back to the controls and piloted them into the vortex, his handling of the controls notably efficient and business-like, devoid of its usual smiles and bounces.

Once the TARDIS was safely in the vortex, he returned to the medical bay to finish taking care of River's injuries. As he carefully washed the trails of blood off her face and bandaged her remaining scrapes, he was comforted to know that there were at least some of her injuries he could see, analyze, and care for. In fact, he did perhaps a better job than was strictly necessary or even useful locating and bandaging every minor cut. When he was fully satisfied that every physical injury she had sustained was identified and taken care of, he sighed, knowing that he now had nothing to do but wait. Over a thousand years of living and he still hadn't managed to find many things he hated more than waiting.

He started to lift her to bring her to their bedroom, but lowered her back onto the bed in the medical bay as he thought better of it. Now that he had mostly accepted what had happened, he was trying to be as realistic as he could manage in any given moment about what he might have to deal with when (if) she came to and he recalled that several of the patients he'd seen in the ward on Gallifrey required restraints to keep them from hurting themselves or those around them. He swallowed hard and blinked back tears again as he checked the room for the type of restraints he would need in that situation. He couldn't bear the thought of using the handcuffs they kept in the bedroom for such a thing.

He removed River's shoes and pulled the sheet up over her body, tucking it in gently around her and smiling at the way her hair still managed to fan out around her head on the pillow as though she were just sleeping off another adventure. His heart ached with how much he wished that was the case.

He went to their bedroom and returned carrying a ridiculous oversized wicker chair that River had bought him during one of their trips to the marketplace on Choreolus. As he placed it next to the bed and sat down in it, he fondly remembered how he'd exclaimed over it when they passed it (it was painted with clouds of all things, clouds! on a chair!). River had rolled her eyes at him as always, but she'd smiled as she took his hand to lead him away, reminding him that he could see all the clouds he wanted any day he wanted on any planet. He'd lost her in the maze of the marketplace at some point and had spent his time chasing a mysterious monkey around before she re-found him, carrying a necklace she said she'd run off to buy. When they'd returned to the TARDIS later that evening he'd found the chair sitting in the console room, tied with a red ribbon and a tag reading "You may be a silly, silly man sometimes, but you're my silly, silly man. Never stop living in the clouds, Sweetie. Love, River."

Surfacing from his memories, the Doctor took River's hand in his own. He had no memory of starting to cry, but he was well and truly crying now and the tears fell from his face to land on River's hand as he leaned in to kiss it. Turning her hand over and leaning into her palm, he whispered his promise again into her skin.  _I will not leave you. I loved you when you poisoned me, and when you saved me, and when you bought me that chair and when you yelled at me and when you made love to me, but I will still love you if you never do any of those things again._ The promise became a plea.  _But please, River, just please wake up for me._ And with that, exhausted by worry alone, the Doctor fell asleep in the clouds.


	5. There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back

The first time River's body tried to come to consciousness the pain and strangeness of her head was far too much for her to handle. The instinctual part of her brain managed to get her eyes open and lean her over the side of the bed so that when she threw up from the well-beyond-migraine pain in her skull it was off of the bed rather than on it, but that was all it managed before she mercifully blacked out again.

Thankfully the Doctor had fallen asleep with his head resting on River's hand, so he woke up the instant she moved and jumped up to grab her left arm and place a hand comfortingly on her back as she was suddenly sick. An instant later her head slumped forward as she passed out again and she tilted dangerously over the side, but the Doctor's hold on her arm enabled him to keep her from falling headfirst off of the bed. He pulled her back from the edge and caught her in his arms as she fell backwards. Unbelievably happy to know it was at least possible for her to wake up, he squeezed her unconscious torso in a tight hug. He lowered her gently back onto the bed before stepping back and hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement. Beaming from ear to ear he clapped his hands together and ran to find a mop. His mind raced - had he ever been so happy to need a mop? No, definitely not. Hurrying back to the to the medical bay with the mop in his hands, he paused in the doorway to waltz with the mop before catching himself and glancing over at River, illogically afraid that she would be jealous. The concern on his face soon disappeared and he let out a whoop as he realized how wonderful it was that there was a chance, even a tiny chance, that she would someday glare at him in jealousy again. He nearly kissed the mop.

Soon the Doctor had cleaned up the floor and had fetched a basin so that he would be better prepared if the same thing happened to poor River the next time she came to. He glanced worriedly at River (he didn't want to miss anything!) before running to his library where he frantically scanned the shelves before snatching up a terribly dry Gallifreyan text he'd nearly forgotten he owned, aptly titled "A Treatise on Psychoelectric Phenomena." After recent events he felt somewhat guilty about having shelved it under "boring," but so be it. He snatched a notebook off the desk so he could note anything of importance and took off again. Running with the book, he skidded back into the medical bay and exhaled when he saw that River was still out cold. He sat back down in his beloved chair, touched River's hand to let her know that he was back, and opened the book.

Although his reading pace and general mental abilities were beyond exceptional, the book was rather boring and he had extraordinary motivation to be thorough in the study of this subject so he moved through the text at a slow pace. Three hours later he had taken thirty four pages of notes and advanced a mere hundred pages into the eight hundred page treatise. When he found himself staring off into the room for the second time in ten minutes he decided to give himself a break from reading. Picking up the notebook again, he turned to a new page and started to doodle. Doodling was exactly the Doctor's kind of activity, he thought. Just as he noted that his squiggles were starting to bear a suspicious resemblance to River's hair rather than to the compression coils he had intended to draw, River's head shifted on the pillow.

He was up in an instant, poised next to her with basin, pain medication, and water at the ready, but she made no effort to get up, instead rolling onto her side and bringing one hand up to touch her temple. She grimaced in pain and a look of deep confusion played across her features. The Doctor didn't want to startle her by speaking, but he placed his free hand on her elbow to see if it would elicit a response. The touch seemed to go unnoticed as River continued to frown in pain and concentration, her eyes moving beneath tightly closed lids as though searching. He risked saying, "I'm here River, right here" in case she was searching for him, but that was also unsuccessful in eliciting a response. He even considered releasing his mental shields and trying to contact her within whatever nightmare she was living inside her head, but when he'd first gotten her situated he had attempted to assess the situation by lowering his shields ever so slightly and the resulting waves of psychoelectric energy he had sensed from her had been far too much to risk lowering them any further. The book warned that any psychoelectric contamination could easily be transferred from one unshielded psychically capable mind to another, and he would not be any use to River if he was similarly afflicted. Leaving his right hand on her elbow he placed the basin back on the floor next to her and settled in to observe whatever would or would not happen next.

* * *

_What_ , River thought excruciatingly slowly around the pulsing pain in her skull,

_Mine, it was mine._

_No they said no, they said you took it._

_the hell_

_Kill her? Yes I killed her but -_

_is going on?_

_Yes I was a spy, I told them everything I knew. And I was good._

_STOP THAT_ , she shouted, but the other voices were quiet for less than an instant.

She dimly remembered opening her eyes some time ago (how long ago had that been?), and being sick from the pain and disorientation, and she feared that opening them again would bring about much the same response. Her brain was so crowded with...well, with  _something_ , or rather  _somethings_ , that all of her thoughts surfaced as though through molasses. They seemed to have to push the other thoughts that didn't seem to be hers (were they hers?) out of the way to bring themselves to her attention. She felt as though her head was buzzing, vibrating from the inside, and she barely had any awareness of her body. It was as though these other  _things_  (people?) were packed into her mind along with her, and she was just one voice among many, vying for access to her own body, her own senses, her own ability to speak.

_I shot him twice, from a distance. He would have done the same._

She needed to focus, needed to plan, needed to be able to think enough to figure out what to do.

_I hid it in my quarters on the ship. DON'T TAKE IT, NO._

_It was Thifley, he was my contact all along._

At the current pace of her thoughts, who knew how long that would take. She couldn't even seem to get an accurate gauge on how much time was passing, trapped in this strange, overpopulated version of what used to be her mind, hers and hers alone.

_I did it._

_I didn't do it. But I did forge those documents. Expense reports._

Suddenly, a single thought shot to the top of the heap.

_The Doctor, did he find me?_

She painstakingly turned her attention to the nerves along her body. There, something warm at her elbow. Was it him? For anything else she wouldn't risk it, but she needed to know, needed to know if she was alone or if he'd found her, if he knew what had happened, whatever that was. And if he was here, she needed to let him know that she was still in here. She opened her eyes.

_Lights, colors, pain, ow, stop it, make it stop, too much. It hurts. No make it stop._ The moan of someone in extreme pain added itself to the sensory overload, and it took her disturbingly long to realize that she was the one making the sound. She almost gave in, she wanted to, but she still needed to know. She tried to refocus her vision.

There! a red bow tie, an angular face, a flop of hair, and a look of panicked concern. Then their eyes met so briefly, too briefly, and he smiled. Just for her.

_Too much. The pain, too much. Must stop it._ In the distance, the moan became a wail, and someone, somewhere, was calling her name.

She shut her eyes immediately and tried to close off all of her other senses as well, which left only the pounding, vibrating chatter in her head. She stayed that way for several minutes, or what she thought was several minutes anyway, letting the waves of overexposure, of sensory overload pass over her dulled senses. Finally when enough of it had abated that she could try to think again, only one thought seemed important enough to rise above the chaos.  _He's here._ And with that single thought came such a feeling of warmth and relief, long ago conditioned into her body, that for an instant the pounding let up and she took a single relaxed breath.

Then it was back, as strong and painful as ever. As she started to slip into blackness once more she could just make out one of the other voices, louder and clearer than the rest.

_So that's your savior, is it River?_

And in the corner of her head that was still her own, his laughter echoed as she went under.


	6. Well tell her that I miss our little talks

Sitting next to where River lay yet again unconscious in bed, the Doctor was tapping a pencil on his knee as he gathered the facts. When River had opened her eyes again, she had moaned in pain, and the pain had obviously only increased as she left them open. When their eyes had met, though, it had been at least clear that his River was looking back out at him, not some other consciousness or altered version. Whatever the energy had done to her, his River was still in that body and, it seemed fairly clear, definitely needed him. Right well, he could do... um... something. He could help. Maybe. He hoped.

Ok, back to the facts. The pain had clearly increased when she'd opened her eyes. When he had started talking to her she had also brought her hands up to cover her ears. Clearly some kind of oversensitivity or sensory overload was in effect. That he could help. He got up and dimmed the lights in the medical bay down to a dim glow at which faces could just be identified. Then he realized he couldn't read with the lights that dim. He sighed. Back to pencil tapping.

He was worried about the fact that River kept blacking out. He couldn't really figure out what was wrong with her if she wasn't conscious. Hopefully dimming the lights would help allow her to stay awake for somewhat longer. He could tell from how hard she had worked to keep her eyes open that she wanted to communicate with him in whatever way she could manage. But he wasn't sure he could ever risk contacting her psychically until this was 100% sorted, and if she was in too much pain or mental distress to speak to him...Damn, this would be so much easier if it wasn't her  _mind_  itself that was under attack.

The pencil flew out of his hand, and he winced at the clattering noise it made as it landed on the other side of the room, frowning as he realized what a noise like that could do to River if she didn't improve. Well, ok then, no pencil flinging, he could live with that. And if he left the stabilizers on flying the TARDIS would be quiet enough...wouldn't it? He sighed once more - it was becoming rather too much of a habit over the past 24 hours, he thought - and rested his head in his hands, replacing pencil tapping with excruciatingly soft foot tapping. He might need to invest in slippers. At least he loved slippers.

Another hour or so passed as the Doctor, who resolutely refused to leave the room, developed more and more complex foot-tapping patterns, and vowed to locate some culture who considered soft, seated foot-tapping to be an art (there honestly had to be at least one out there, he had seen everything else).

The Doctor's feet stilled as he heard a soft noise from the bed. He was next to River in an instant and in the dim light he could just see her face as she propped herself up on her elbows, gripping the sheets for strength. She was squinting, still, but her eyes were open. When she saw him, she looked straight at him, and the look in her eyes was one he knew very, very well. It was the look they shared in the middle of an adventure, the instant they both started to run. He loved that look.

He grabbed her fisted hand and nodded - whatever she wanted, he was ready.

River nodded back, wincing slightly at the head motion, and leaned back. Her head had barely hit the pillow when she suddenly sat upright and stared straight out into the room. In the darkness of the room, the Doctor could easily make out the startling blue of the single line of psychoelectricity that was now crackling around her head. He ran around to the bottom of the bed as she began to speak. She was stonily intoning what sounded like someone else's bizarre confession, and the Doctor knew that it wasn't  _her_ speaking with her voice, just as it wasn't  _her_  looking out at him through her eyes.

He had an idea.

Taking his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, he quickly changed the settings back to those he had used in the corridor in Stormcage. Strengthening his mental shields as much as he could and mentally apologizing to the TARDIS for whatever he and River were about to release, he pointed the screwdriver at the far wall of the medical bay and turned it on. Immediately, the blue lightning shot from River's head to his chest before travelling down his arm and being dissipated by the screwdriver. With the energy gone, River collapsed backwards, catching herself with her right arm and breathing heavily. She set her jaw in determination, and another strip of energy appeared around her head as she sat up again. The Doctor repeated his part of the process, and when this surge was gone, River fell all the way backwards. Grunting as she hit the mattress, she found the Doctor's eyes, and he saw all of the determination and ferocity that he was used to River displaying before it was lost as she sat up again. They repeated the process seven times before it became noticeably too difficult for River. She was laying back on the bed, now with her eyes closed, and he could tell she was trying to muster the willpower and strength for an eighth round. They hadn't spoken at all up to this point, since obviously whatever it took to kick out these psychoelectronic contaminants required all of River's attention, but the Doctor had had enough. They both pushed themselves when the situation required, but the seventh attempt had clearly already been pushing the bounds of River's energy, and now she looked outright grey and her breathing was distinctly shallow.

"River, look at me."

She shook her head.

"River, I'm not doing this anymore right now."

She opened her eyes, and he almost laughed. There was his River, completely furious. It was amazing how much energy she could stir up to be angry with him.

"You can blame me if you want, it's my choice, but I won't let you keep going, and without me to pull the energy off you'll be stuck with one of those things in control of your mind."

She was positively glowering.

"Oh would you just look at yourself? Your hands are shaking, you're pale as anything, and you haven't had anything to eat or drink in 24 hours, not to mention the fact that you threw up whatever you had in you. Don't be stupid, River." He had moved around the bed to stand next to her and was scolding her like a child. It might have been harsh, had he not known how stubborn she was. He'd learned that lesson on their wedding day, and learned it well.

She looked away, and he knew she was giving in.

He was right, River knew he was right, but there were still too many voices in her head and she just wanted to be rid of them. Now that she had a little more space to think and somewhat more access to her own body, she realized that she was indeed thirsty and hungry and exhausted. She had gotten rid of most of the stronger presences, so that the only ones remaining she heard as mumbles underneath her own thoughts, aside from the one truly frightening one, who seemed to have somehow hidden himself away in his own corner of her mind. She would deal with him later.

She sighed, acquiescing, and turned back to the Doctor. Looking at him properly, even in the dim lighting, her sense of her own exhaustion was largely replaced by concern for him. He looked awful. His hair was in even more disarray than usual, and it looked like he'd been wearing the same concerned frown for days. She was fairly sure she could speak now, at least some, and it didn't take much mental prowess to tell that they could both use a little levity, so she forced a smile and cleared her throat.

Her first to attempts to start speaking produced only silence as she opened her mouth. As the Doctor grew visibly even more concerned, she held up a hand to forestall whatever shushing or comforting he intended to do. She could do this. She opened her mouth a third time.

"Doctor, you know how much I appreciate your efforts but I'm not sure the romantic lighting will get you very far at the moment." Fueled by relief, his laughter was actually too loud for her still sensitive hearing, and as she flinched away from him a bit he got the hint and finished his fit of laughter more quietly.

He leaned in to kiss her and she responded as warmly as she could, given the exhaustion that was now really hitting her. As he pulled away, she yawned before muttering, "And you'd better have something ready for me to eat when I wake up. And please, no fish fingers, give a girl a break, hmm?"

And this time it was his gentle answering chuckle that filled her ears as she submitted to the sleep craved by her over-taxed mind.


	7. I don't like walking around this old and empty house/ So hold my hand I'll walk with you my dear

By the time River awoke from her much-needed nap, the Doctor had made up a tray of sandwiches for them to share. Waking up and trying to see him in the dim lighting, she asked that he try turning up the lights at least somewhat, and they were both pleased to find that she could handle the lights at nearly full capacity. As she greedily drank from the glasses of water the Doctor had brought, the Doctor offered her various sandwiches and she nodded or shook her head to indicate which ones he should save for himself and which ones he should give her. While they both ate their sandwiches, the Doctor outlined what he knew of psychoelectronics. He left out the more gruesome details of the consequences of accidents back on Gallifrey, and though River could tell that he was avoiding saying something, she left him alone about it. River then recounted what it had felt like when she first regained consciousness, described what she could remember of what the voices had been saying, and explained to the Doctor what it was like now.

The Doctor was significantly upset when River described the mental feel of the particularly strong voice, but she comforted him (and herself) by explaining that he was more difficult to remove than the others but currently seemed to be dormant. She could feel his presence, but it was faint and withdrawn and no thoughts were detectable. She had even tried what she could only describe as the mental version of poking and prodding him in his corner, but had elicited no response at all. Still somewhat dissatisfied, the Doctor grunted, but she raised an eyebrow at him and he settled down, agreeing that she was probably well aware of whatever it was that was going on inside her own head.

From what the Doctor had studied, what River remembered from the general's explanation, and River's experience it wasn't terribly hard to come to the conclusion that the equipment used on River was a psychoelectric extractor, originally developed on Gallifrey, but abandoned along with the rest of the psychoelectric equipment as unjustifiably risky. From what they knew, it seemed like when applied to non-psychically active races such as humans the device extracted the current thoughts of the subject as a psychoelectronic charge, which could then be read by the machine and stored within. It was an imperfect process, however, and depending on the stability of the mind in question also extracted some amount of personality. It was a dangerous, dangerous practice and as they discussed it River had to uncurl the Doctor's fists with her own hands before he would calm down.

"It's not even just what it did to you - that device is just so, so...so completely  _wrong_ ," he was nearly shouting but trying to keep his voice down for River's sake, which just made his voice sound oddly strained.

River patted his hand fondly and told him to bring the tray back to the kitchen and bring her back something sweet. "Not a Jammie Dodger!" she added as she caught the glint in his eyes. He pouted but complied.

With the Doctor out of the room, River closed her eyes and put her hands up to her head to massage her temples, attempting to prepare for the next round of evictions, so to speak. Taking stock of how things felt in her mind, she identified nine remaining fragments, not counting him. Her curiosity got the better of her and she nudged him again with her mind. She gasped as his presence uncurled like some sort of sleeping dragon and then her body was lost to her as he took over her mind. Her eyes flew open, and the room dissolved before her. Her eyes refocused and she wasn't in the TARDIS medical bay anymore, instead she was looking at a dingy wall.

* * *

Her head was reeling. As she brought her left hand up to steady herself against the wall, she saw that her hand was not her hand at all, but rather the hand of some rather burly man. Worse, as she pulled her hand away from the wall to examine it more closely, it left a bloody handprint behind. Looking down at herself, she saw that she was indeed in the body of some large man, and that his/her left hand was bloodied and his/her right hand held a knife. A knife that had recently been used. River spun around to face into the room, which proved to be the bedroom of a squalid apartment. There lying on the mattress on the floor across from her was a pretty, dark-haired woman in perhaps her mid-twenties, and it was immediately clear that this woman was the source of the blood on River's hand. Dying, the woman met River's eyes with eyes that reflected nothing but pain and surprise. She gasped out a few words and River strained to hear them, "Sam, why?" The mouth of the body River was inside opened, and as the woman took her last few breaths cruel laughter echoed off the walls of the tiny room. The sound of the laughter was the hint River needed - it was the same as the laugh she had heard from the presence in her mind.  _Sam_. He had a name, and, presumably, this was one of his memories she was being forced to live.

_Aren't we a clever girl, River Song._

_But enough about me._

Suddenly the scene was changing, the body of the woman in front of her faded.

_No, no no no._

She tried to turn her head away, but he stopped her somehow. The woman's body had been replaced with that of the Doctor, dressed as he had been in the medical bay, and now it was his chest that was covered with blood, seeping out from the left side of his body. River could feel Sam flipping through her memories, her knowledge, could feel his satisfaction as he came upon first the memory of her shooting the Doctor and then the memory of her poisoning him, and then, best of all, all her training in how to kill him.

 _Oh. Two hearts, well that's interesting_.

Then he invaded memories which were definitely none of his business, and River experienced a range of feelings and reactions against her will as they flashed before her. Sam laughed that same, disturbing laugh.

_Makes him a better lover, I see._

Armed with newfound knowledge, he adjusted the scene to make it more accurate - the Doctor's chest sprouted another wound, this time on the right. Then he forced her to look down at herself as he replaced his body with her own. She was slightly surprised to see that he first chose to leave her naked, but she was pleased that it showed how little he still knew her, because it didn't cause her emotions to flare at all.

_Oh River, River, River, we both know you're an exhibitionist._

_This isn't to scare you, this just is for the view._

If it was possible to shiver only in one's mind, then that is what River did. As she continued to stare down at herself, clothes appeared on her body and she had the impulse to close her eyes, but Sam wouldn't let her avoid the sight. She was wearing what she had worn as she regenerated from Mels into the body known as River Song. The day she nearly killed him with a kiss. Still, this was a day she had long ago come to terms with.

_Don't worry, I'm just getting warmed up._

Those clothes faded away, and suddenly she was back in the astronaut suit, staring at the Doctor's dying body through the helmet. It was a testament to River's hard-earned emotional strength and stability that it took her until this point to panic, but as she felt the restricting arms of the suit pressed against her flesh, a rising tide of panic caused the blood to pound in her ears and her chest to tighten.

The scene began to waver, and she could feel Sam's presence struggling to maintain its hold - evidently he had limits of exertion.

_So close. So close to having you and this ship all to myself. Damn._

His "voice" was fading.

_You won't be able to get me out, you know._

_I'm too much stronger than the others. I'm so much_ more  _than they are_.

As the vision disappeared she heard his faint, parting words and then he was dormant again, silent in a corner of her mind.

_While you wait, River, remember what I can do. What I can make you do._

* * *

Coming back to the real world, River's awareness of her body returned gradually. Still with her eyes closed, she could tell that she was standing rather than sitting, as she had started out before all of this. It took her a moment to realize that it was in the real world, not in a remnant of the vision, that her right hand was closed around the hilt of a knife. Frightened by what Sam had said about "what he could make her do," she opened her eyes carefully.

The knife clattered to the floor and slid under the kitchen cabinets, but the sound of its landing was covered by River's scream.

At the sound of her voice the Doctor spun around from where he had been washing their plates at the kitchen sink to find River staring at him from the doorway, her hands shaking like leaves and her eyes glued to his face. He dropped the plates into the sink and ran to her, pulling her into his arms as she continued to shake with fear.

"Woah," he spoke gently into her hair, "It's ok, River. It's alright. Whatever it is, it's gone now, ok, I'm here, you're fine. It's just the kitchen, see. Lovely TARDIS kitchen. Lovely kitchen. Nothing dangerous. Lots of tea. Lots of biscuits." He was rambling, but it didn't seem like the particulars of what he was saying mattered much at the moment.

Feeling the pounding of the Doctor's still-beating hearts as he gathered her into his arms, River began to cry softly in mingled relief and fear.

"Shhh, River. Ok just breathe River. Can you tell me what's wrong, maybe I can help? I'm a Doctor you know," he joked, "well, sort of."

Safe for the moment in his arms, knowing he hadn't seen the knife, and with Sam once again curled up silent in the corner of her mind, River pulled it together enough to lie to him.

"I...I just got afraid, being alone in there. And...and you were taking longer than I expected, so I came to look for you, but everything was so bright and the corridors were so empty and I couldn't find you and then I finally got here and I didn't see you at first and - "

"Shhhhh, ok. Well we found each other, right? So it's ok. See, I was in here, and I was coming back for you. And if you don't want to you don't have to walk around without me yet, alright?" He smoothed her hair and pulled away. He was worried about her again. This wasn't like her at all. Better get her back to bed. She was sniffling now as her tears let up and he reached his hand down to take hers.

"Here, take my hand and we can walk back together. How's that sound? And then maybe we'll just go back to sleep for now."  
River gripped his hand firmly and nodded, but shook her head at the second suggestion. As he led her back through the corridors to her bed in the medical bay she stammered out a request that he help her get rid of the remaining weaker presences before she went back to sleep, and when they arrived he reluctantly complied.

With that completed, River agreed to go back to sleep. She was still shaken from what she had learned about Sam and what he had nearly made her do, and as much as she was terrified of what she would do to the Doctor if she let him take control again, while he was still dormant she craved the comfort of the Doctor's presence. Not knowing the true reasons for her fears, the Doctor happily agreed to join her in the tiny bed, wrapping her securely in his embrace. With the beating of his hearts in her ears, she fell asleep once more, but it was a fitful sleep of terrible dreams.

Dreams that were almost as frightening as reality.


	8. Some days I can't even trust myself

When River woke up once more, it was to the sensation of the Doctor's soft breathing against the back of her neck. It was a feeling she knew as well as the whisper of his hands against her skin or the sound of his voice when she surprised him - that beautiful, beautiful sound of pleasure and slight exasperation he breathed out along with her name when he found her somewhere he wasn't expecting to.  _River_.

She snuggled back into him further, and his arms instinctively closed tighter around her. Her eyes fluttered closed and she had nearly drifted back to sleep when her thoughts brushed against the lurking shadow that was Sam's dormant consciousness. Suddenly the memories of yesterday's ordeal came rushing back to her - that room, blood everywhere, her hand around a knife, his cold laughter. Her entire body tensed and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She couldn't let the Doctor know, but she had to get him out of here before Sam accumulated enough strength to overcome her again. Breathing deeply once, and then twice, she tried to slow the beating of her hearts down enough so that her words wouldn't come out in a rush. She needed to appear in control, or he would never go for it.

River rolled over to face the Doctor and called his name softly. His eyes opened and he sat up quickly, immediately reaching out to touch her shoulder and ask if she was ok. She nodded, and then jumped right in - who knew how much time she had to get him to leave?

"Doctor, I really think you should go back to ask the general more about who that device had been used on." Before he could complete his objection to the idea of leaving her alone, she continued, "I'll not leave the bed, and you needn't worry. I'll know where you've gone, and I'll be just fine. I'm feeling much better than I did yesterday - I think the whole experience was just getting to me," she lied, "but I'd like to see if we could figure out together how to get rid of whatever it is that is left up here. I like it much better when it's just the two of us," she was trying to flirt with him, which was usually her main mode of persuading the Doctor, but Sam's taunting had left her just too disturbed in that respect and she had to suppress a shudder, so she went back to straight logic. "Listen, he's the only source of information we have on this, and I don't think I can stand to go back to that room -"

He interrupted her, "No. No, I wouldn't let you." He shook his head at the situation and sighed as she stared at him. River was right, of course, this was the only way he could get anymore information to help them remove the last presence, and without any more knowledge as to the nature of the particular presence, he was stumped at the moment. He ran a hand through her hair, and though she didn't lean into it, she did close her eyes briefly before meeting his again. He was trying to will himself not to be so worried about leaving her behind. Of course he couldn't bring her back there with him, but after yesterday he couldn't shake the idea that something else had happened to her, something she wasn't telling him about. But River never held anything back from him anymore (aside from Spoilers, of course), he reminded himself. For some reason that didn't comfort him. Well, there was nothing to be done for it - no matter how much he would worry he knew this needed to be done. "Alright. I'll bring the TARDIS back there, and then I'll be out and back in a flash. Promise you'll be fine?" he asked as he stood and shrugged on his tweed.

"Promise," she said quickly, and neither of them believed her.

As soon as she heard the sound of the TARDIS landing (and it was a sign of her remaining panic that she didn't spare a thought to the fact that he'd left the brakes on _again_ ), River got out of bed and gathered up all of the restraints she could find in the medical bay. She was going to have to get Sam out herself, and until then she couldn't trust herself at all - he could control her completely, it seemed, and that was not something River was about to risk. She took stock of the pile of chains, cords, and cuffs before her and picked out several sturdy chains with keyed locks. Finding the corresponding hooks in the wall across from the bed, she used her extensive knowledge of restraints to maneuver herself into the chains, throwing the keys far across the room as she locked each set. She'd never been so happy to be tied up in her life. Finally, she could calm down slightly - at least when he took her this time there would be no risk to the Doctor, and with that worry removed, perhaps she could somehow overpower him. She hoped. Struggling against the chains, she was thoroughly satisfied by how secure they were, and she braced herself against them as she waited.

River didn't need to wait long. As she felt him stir inside her mind only a few seconds later, she gasped at how close she'd come to leaving herself unrestrained when he took over. She could feel him awake again, but he hadn't "said" anything to her yet or made any move to control her. She waited, trying to build up some sort of mental defense.

Back in the part of River's mind he'd shielded from her awareness, Sam was busy revising his plan. He had to give her credit, he hadn't anticipated that she'd manage to send the Doctor off and tie herself up while he was dormant this time. He soon realized, however, that this new situation in which he couldn't actually move River to kill the Doctor might provide him an even better opportunity to accomplish his goals of killing him off and taking over River permanently. He went over the details of his new plan, perfecting them before setting them into motion. If he carried them out properly, and of course he would, he would eliminate the problem of his still-growing strength and how it forced him into periodic dormancy. No - and now he laughed so that she could sense it - after this River would do his work for him, whether or not he was in control. And with any luck she'd go insane in the process, leaving him free reign of her body.

River heard his laugh, and it sounded frightfully triumphant as it seemed to echo all around her, and then her vision swam again. When it cleared this time, what she saw had not changed. The brief blackout must simply have been caused by Sam's awakening, because she was still in the medical bay, chained to the wall. As she began to move, she knew he had bested her yet again, seemingly without trying, since her body was no longer in her control. In what truly should have been an impossible feat, she watched as Sam somehow maneuvered her body out of the chains. She was so panicked to have lost control again - and to be somehow  _escaping_  of all things - that she simply couldn't focus enough to pay attention to the fine details of her escape. If she had, she would have seen that the chains were altered slightly from how she'd secured them. That information, in turn, could have tipped her off to what Sam was doing to her, what he was making her believe as he created a false reality for her while leaving her actual body precisely where it was. Unfortunately for River, she missed her one opportunity to see through his ruse.

The tide of panic turned to a sea of sinking dread as Sam marched her out of the room and down the hall to the bedroom she shared with the Doctor. She could feel him drawing on her mental map of the TARDIS to navigate. He went through her drawers and passed over blaster after blaster, finally settling River's hand on which her memory told him would be perfectly sufficient on the Doctor. River was frightened beyond reason. If this had been some nightmare she would certainly have woken herself up in a cold sweat by now, but as it was that was not the case. She couldn't snap out of it or even look away. Sam continued to shape the vision River believed to be reality and walked River into the console room, choosing to have the Doctor open the door to come back inside as they arrived.

The part of her brain which had gone into complete denial about the scene that was transpiring dispassionately remarked that he must have set an interrogation record to have gotten his information and come back so soon. For some reason, that struck her as the most tragic bit of all - he was rushing to his death because he was afraid for her. Not afraid  _of_  her. Had her body been hers to control, she would have wept.

As the Doctor walked in he saw River, a question about her well-being already forming in his eyes (or so Sam made it seem - he needed this to be incredibly accurate for it to work). River looked down at her right arm as Sam raised it to point her gun at the Doctor.

Two shots and it was over.

He had barely made it through the TARDIS doors, and the force of the shots to both his hearts flug him backwards out the door, his dying cry muffled as in the vision Sam closed the doors of the TARDIS behind him.

Sam thought it was a nice touch, and so, clearly did River. Even though he knew this to be only a vision, River didn't, so it seemed a waste to miss out on her suffering by keeping control over her in the vision as well. He dropped his control over her "body," and she crumpled to the ground, deathly white and silently screaming as her whole body contorted in pain, turning on itself. She was on fire with the pain of losing the Doctor - it surged along her nerve endings and left her more raw than anything she'd ever believed possible. Finally she found her voice, and an endless howl wound its way out of her body around the pain. She found herself wishing that her very life was draining out of her with that cry, but alas, it wasn't. She tried to starve herself of oxygen to make it all go away - at least she'd given him all her regenerations - but her body stubbornly gasped for air. From his protected corner of her mind, Sam watched her writhing on the floor in his created reality and put his final card into play. Her mind was ripping itself to shreds with agony right now, and he knew she would believe anything because of that, so he took his chance.

Suddenly a figure began to form beside River, and from where she lay with her eyes barely open through a field of tears, it seemed as though the figure's substance was curling out from her own head, coalescing next to her into what was quickly coming to resemble a person. She tried to clear her eyes so that she could see better, and screamed at what she saw, scrambling backwards across the console room floor. Standing in front of her in the middle of the TARDIS console room was Sam, just as she'd seen him when she was inside his body in his memory. Looking down at how she backed away from him, the figure laughed and it was Sam's voice as she was used to hearing it inside her head. She whimpered at the sound, and as she heard the pathetic, frightened sound coming from her own mouth, some part of her woke up from whatever losing the Doctor had done to it. River should not be whimpering in the presence of this monster, she should be killing him. But as she began to stand, the figure changed. His face thinned, his hair lengthened, and a bow tie appeared at his throat. Sam had morphed himself into the Doctor. She knew it was Sam, and she knew she needed to kill him, but she couldn't even stand to look at him. The horror of seeing her beloved Doctor killed and then replaced by that evil being was too much. An angry shout died in her throat and she turned to run. She only got a few steps before his hand closed around her arm, and at the feel of the Doctor's hands on her skin once more she cried out. She struggled but it was no use. As the Doctor, Sam seemed to have far greater strength than the Doctor himself. Without speaking, he dragged her back to the medical bay and locked her up in the chains again. River tried desperately to keep her head turned away from him as he maneuvered her, but it was impossible to avoid seeing him completely, and each time she glimpsed his face rage, terror and unfathomable sadness warred within her. Finally trapped against the wall, River turned her head away, pressing it into her shoulder, and then fought him as hard as she could as he put his hand against her cheek and turned her head to face him. She snarled as she was forced to look at him.

Still inside her head, the real Sam rejoiced at the opportunity before him. What an unexpected perk of this plan. He made his Sam-turned-Doctor creation lean in towards River in the vision.

He was coming towards her, and then he was kissing her. River fought him with everything she had, with every memory of the real Doctor and every bit of strength she'd gathered in years opposing Kovarian and the Silence. She bit down on his lip, but he wouldn't relent. Then her eyes darkened as she heard him somehow still inside her head, despite also being in front of her. His voice sounded incredibly pleased.

_Oh River, don't stop River, it's so much better when you fight._

Hearing this, she redirected her strength to force herself to stop struggling and give into his touch. Obviously he did not enjoy this nearly as much, because he pulled away almost immediately and slapped her hard on the cheek. Her eyes went black for an instant, she assumed from the strength of his hand.

 _Goodbye for now, River_ , Sam thought as he felt his power draining away yet again, but he made sure she couldn't hear him. As he was forced to let the vision drop he had one brief instant to marvel at the perfection of what was about to occur to the real River where she was hanging limply in the chains, just about to be freed from his control.

* * *

The Doctor had returned from Stormcage to find River chained to the wall of the medical bay, presumably by her own hand, and seemingly in some sort of stupor. She wasn't exactly unconscious, as she moved occasionally, but as much as he talked, then shouted, and then even shook her she wouldn't respond to him. Armed with knowledge about the machine and the presence he had no choice to assume was now lodged inside her, he  _needed_  to wake her. He stepped back slightly and brought his hand up, shaking his head at what he was being forced to do.

He slapped River hard across the cheek and she woke up with a start. He was shocked to find her eyes full of more pain and hatred than he had ever known her to feel before.

* * *

River's vision had just barely cleared from the first slap when the Doctor slapped her again, and as she looked up, both cheeks stinging, all she saw was the face of Sam-turned-Doctor, looking at her with some sort of false concern in his horrible eyes.

Sam's plan could not have gone better if he had been controlling the real Doctor himself.

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a several chapter fic, loosely inspired by the song Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men. The title of the fic as well as most future chapter titles are from the lyrics. Comments and thoughts are always welcome and greatly appreciated. Thanks go to GrumpyJenn, SnowyAshes, and Amie33 for opinions and beta duties. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> ~Bev


End file.
